Emerging with Colored Pencil - Spring 2009 Issue of Horses in Art Magazine

Emerging with Colored Pencil

by Sarah H. Crampton

Hello World – Colored Pencil, 8.75 x13.5, by Helen Bailey. “He looked so enthusiastic and ready for anything.”
Hello World is the title of the charming colored pencil drawing that decorates the Spring 2009 Horses in Art cover. Its sumptuous tones can easily be mistaken for a pastel, oil or acrylic painting. The artist Helen Bailey comments, “The image was so striking to me because he looked so enthusiastic and ready for anything that might happen that I had to draw it. The suede mat board surface I worked on just seemed to bring this out.” Helen Bailey’s friend, Jamie Cangelose, a skilled photographer who has a ranch nearby, took the reference photo for Hello World.

Although involved in art since childhood, just four years ago Helen Bailey was introduced to colored pencil by taking an art class. Bailey remarks, “The charismatic teacher Linda Lucas Hardy was able to bring out things I never dreamed were possible with colored pencil.” Bailey has been a student of Hardy’s since then.

Bailey has subscribed to Horses in Art for the last four years and saw Shirley Isola’s work in the Winter 2007 issue. After emailing Isola about how much she admired her horses, Bailey arranged for her to come to McKinney, Texas, to teach a workshop. The colored pencil drawing Royalty was the result of taking Isola’s workshop.

From Isola, Bailey learned that you could draw on matboard, besides its more traditional use for framing. Isola also introduced the use of Gamsol, odorless mineral spirits, with the colored pencils to deepen and intensify the colors. Bailey used a shade of Crescent Moorman suede matboard, called moccasin as the surface to create the foal in Hello World. She feels indebted to Shirley Isola for all the information she shared.

Always dreaming of being a horse owner, in 2004 Helen Bailey finally bought her first horse – a Quarter Horse mare named Nifty who has been the subject of her drawings as well as her faithful trail riding companion. She feels her technique and skill with colored pencil is just beginning.

Bit of History:

Colored Pencil

Colored pencil is a relatively new medium – less than a century old – showing up in the early 1900s in Europe. About the same time in the United States, architect Frank Lloyd Wright included color pencil in his architectural drawings. In the 1930s two American companies began producing commercial wax-based colored pencils. In 1938, Berol pencils produced a new line of colored pencils that were available in 36 colors. Information obtained from Exploring Color Pencils by Sandra Angelo

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